


31 Days of Halloween 2020

by pawnofkings



Category: All For The Game - Nora Sakavic
Genre: 31 Days Of Halloween, Alternate Universe - Demons, Alternate Universe - Vampire, Alternate Universe - Werewolf, Angst, First Meetings, Fluff, Ghosts, Halloween, Humor, M/M, Meet-Cute, Vampires, there'll be some - Freeform
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2020-10-01
Updated: 2020-10-07
Packaged: 2021-03-07 16:00:22
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 6
Words: 3,589
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26750275
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/pawnofkings/pseuds/pawnofkings
Summary: 31 days of Halloween ficlets, updating every day of October.Day 4: "Is that blood or red syrup? Please tell me it's syrup."Neil looked up at Nicky, who’d just walked into the kitchen, and then down at his shirt. “What’s red syrup?”
Relationships: Neil Josten/Andrew Minyard
Comments: 11
Kudos: 176





	1. High Stakes

**Author's Note:**

> I've gathered prompts from several Halloween prompts lists on Tumblr and will be writing a ficlet (500-1000 words) for each and posting those daily leading up to Halloween. Links to the posts I've taken the prompts from will be in the end notes of the chapters. When the month is done, I'll add a 32nd chapter as a sort of chapter index with the prompts as well as sources. Hope you enjoy!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "I thought vampires were supposed to burst into flames when they get staked."

“I thought vampires were supposed to burst into flames when they get staked.”

“Harmful stereotype”, the vampire replied. He glanced down at his shoulder and winced. “ _ Harmful _ stereotype. Ow! Do you just stab everyone you meet?”

“It’s more likely than you think”, Andrew drawled. He didn’t really know what to do. His stake was still protruding from the vampire’s right shoulder and he didn’t have any other weapons (none that would prove more effective than the stake, in any case). He couldn’t run fast enough for the creature not to catch up (and he refused to die fleeing), and he didn’t think the vampire would just let him leave. “And you’re a blood-sucking monster, so you’ve got to take that into account.”

“ _ You’re _ in  _ my _ home. Would you mind helping me remove this?” the vampire replied, gesturing helplessly at the stake. He was quite pretty, with his auburn hair (as if blood had stained it from brown), creepily icy blue eyes, and surprisingly tan skin. He was a far cry from Dracula. Even his clothes were underwhelming: rather than long robes, popped collar and fancy slacks, all in black of course, he was wearing a navy bubble jacket and ripped, blue jeans. His t-shirt had a  _ math joke _ on it, for God’s sake. (And Andrew didn’t even get it. Some stupid calculus bullshit. They were definitely not in Transylvania.)

But, well. If someone hisses at you, fangs out and dripping red - especially when you’re searching through a vampiric lair and thought you were alone - you go for the stake. Not that it had worked.

Without understanding why, Andrew reached out for the stake. The vampire flinched away, eyeing him warily. “You asked”, he said, deadpan, and caught the end of the stake between his fingers. The sound it made when he pulled it out almost made him wince, and the vampire moaned in pain.

Andrew actually felt kind of bad. Just a little, though.

“I don’t suppose you’ll let me leave after that?” Andrew asked. He probably would’ve been afraid if he wasn’t so busy trying to wrap his head around the situation. And, well, if he was able to feel much of anything. The fear of death hadn’t been instilled in him as much as taken from him.

The vampire tilted his head to the side, looking at him curiously. “I mean, I can’t have you going around telling everyone I’m a vampire, you know? And one less vampire hunter on the street sounds like fairly good news.”

“I’m not a vampire hunter”, Andrew replied.

The vampire didn’t look convinced. He also didn’t look at all concerned about the hole in his body. Andrew could see it through the hole in the bubble jacket. The white stuffing stuck out a bit. “Then what are you?”

“Curious.” 

“You’re  _ curious", _ the vampire replied, sounding as if he didn’t at all believe it.

“Not much else to do around here, you know”, Andrew said, gesturing vaguely with one hand. 

“Other than killing vampires, that is?”

“Plan A wasn’t to kill you, but then you came at me like you’d rip my throat out”, Andrew explained. “Forgive me for getting nervous.”

The vampire nodded thoughtfully. “I  _ was  _ about to do that.”

Andrew waved a hand, like  _ ‘see?’ _

“Then what  _ was _ Plan A?” 

Andrew looked into the ice-blue eyes of the man in front of him. “Bite me.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Let me know what you think in the comments! And happy Halloween month!
> 
> Prompt by bookofmirth on tumblr ("I thought vampires were supposed to burst into flames when they get staked"): https://www.tumblr.com/blog/view/bookofmirth/166078689072


	2. Answer My Calls

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Can you stop randomly summoning me? I was mid-conversation.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Time for some Demon!Neil! 
> 
> The original prompt I was going to do was “So you guys are saying no one put up the extra scary scarecrow in the front yard?” which surpassed 1200 words and has been posted as its own fic if you wanna check it out! (Ravens fans put up a Neil-themed scarecrow at PSU not realizing that... Scarecrows are anti-bird. Bit of angst, bit of humor.)
> 
> October will probably be my most active month yet because I've got so many prompts to do even outside this collection! I'll be doing a lot of Halloween fics so subscribe to my page if you wanna see when those pop up!

“Can you stop randomly summoning me? I was mid-conversation.” He really had been, too; Crowley had been talking about the new transfer for  _ weeks _ , some high-profile case who’d somehow managed to sneak their way into Heaven before being rightfully punted down to Hell’s 53rd room. The final preparations for his punishment were Crowley’s newest obsession and he’d been raving on and on while Neil stood there, bored out of his mind - so really, Andrew was doing him a bit of a favor, but the others really were getting on his case about constantly being summoned out of important board meetings. And sure, if he didn’t want to be summoned by Andrew anymore he could just cut the bond, but he wasn’t about to do that.

Andrew looked up at him with absolute indifference on his face. Figures that he wouldn’t be all too invested in Neil’s career. He remained sitting, cross-legged on his linoleum kitchen floor, in front of a summoning circle drawn in melted black candlewax (Bath & Body Works) adorned with a human skull, a few deer antlers, various exotic spices, a small pile of fruit and some of Neil’s favorite things. And how could Neil be mad at him when among those things was a set of keys and a packet of Exy collector’s cards? It wasn’t even worth the effort of trying.

“I had a question”, Andrew said in a way of explanation.

“Is this gonna be like last Tuesday when you asked me if Hell has coffee?”

“It was a valid question.”

“Are you making plans for when you end up there?” Neil leaned back against the kitchen island and crossed his arms.

Andrew dragged a finger through the half-solidified wax on the floor. His fingertip came up smudged black, and he wiped it on his jeans. “You said I’m not going there."

The pang that reverberated in his chest was getting harder to ignore each day. He was constantly reminded that their time together had an end date. On the day of Andrew’s death (and he loathed to think of it), he would in all likelihood be escorted to live in Heaven for eternity. 

An eternity away from Neil.

He coughed to clear his throat of the lump that lodged itself there whenever he thought of it and replied, softly, “you’re not.”

Andrew tilted his head, staring down at the floor as if it were the most interesting thing in the world. It might, given the skull and general Hellish vibe to it at that moment, be the most interesting thing in his apartment. “What if I wanted to?”

Neil scoffed and shook his head. “You don’t. Hell is for punishment. You don’t deserve that.”

“Well, no”, Andrew agreed, prodding gently at a pomegranate, “but are you hiring?”

The words lanced through Neil and left him mute. His thoughts were put on hold, replaced by pure surprise. “Wh - What?”

This time, Andrew looked up at him. “I don’t want to go to Heaven”, he said quietly. It wasn’t laced with the usual confidence, instead affected by something akin to vulnerability. Neil couldn’t think of the last time he’d heard it out of Andrew’s mouth. “It sounds awfully lonely.”

It was as close to an  _ I want to be with you _ as Neil could imagine getting. But  there was one word, a very important caveat to it all. “It’s not a job you can walk away from. It’s forever.”

“Exactly.” Andrew looked up at him with eyes that saw just a bit too much, all the time. “Awful long time to spend alone.”

And there was that deep, searing  _ yearning _ again. Neil wasn’t old, all things considered. He wasn’t around for the first creature to step out of the water, had never seen a dinosaur and didn’t even witness the birth of Christ. But he had been  _ alone _ for longer than humans could truly wrap their minds around.

“It’s a hefty process”, Neil said dumbly. “Takes a bit more than a job interview.”

Andrew shrugged. “If  _ you  _ could get the job...”

Neil huffed a laugh, taken aback. He still wasn’t used to taking jabs from a human. “I’ll have you know I’m a perfectly good demon.”

Andrew nodded absently. “Do you have to go back to that conversation any time soon?”

Neil shook his head and sank down onto the floor beside his lover. “Crowley’ll be too busy practicing his pitch to even notice I’m gone. He’s thinking lava pools and arctic conditions, alternated every two hours for maximum effect.”

Andrew hummed. “You need to give them relief every now and then. Let them remember what it’s like not to suffer before you shuck them back in.”

Neil couldn’t keep the smile off his face. “You’d make a mighty fine demon.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Started humor, ended fluff. I can never keep to one mood.
> 
> Happy second day of Halloween!
> 
> Prompt (“Darling, can you please stop randomly summoning me? I was mid conversation.” “But I missed you.” “You could have called...”) by requestsmechanism on tumblr: https://requestsmechanism.tumblr.com/post/167709853019/demon-x-human-prompts


	3. Is This Desecration?

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> Prompt: “Dancing upon those graves might not be a good idea.”
> 
> Andrew Minyard works at a local graveyard. One night, he encounters a man jumping up on the grave of one Nathan Wesninski.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Day three! Not supernatural this time around, but graveyards are spooky, no?

Cemetery maintenance wasn’t the most joyful work, seeing as you were constantly surrounded by buried corpses, not to mention the family members of the dead walking around during the day, tears glistening in their eyes and streaking their faces. Andrew could handle the former, didn’t feel much of anything about it actually, but the latter got old quickly. That’s why he’d decided to start doing night shifts, when the cemetery was closed; visibility was never zero thanks to the bright city streets that surrounded the centuries-old graveyard and the frequent moonlight cast down from clear skies. It wasn’t quite enough to let him clean off the gravestones (the newer ones could handle a power wash but the old ones required gentle rubbing lest they soon fall over and crush an unassuming child), but he had a flashlight strapped to his left shoulder that solved that problem easily.

Thanks to the full moon and well-lit apartment complex not far from the cemetery’s southern fences, he saw the man way before he was captured in the beam of the flashlight. 

Andrew clutched one of his sharper tools in one hand as he approached, clicking his flashlight off so as to not reveal himself too soon. ‘Grave maintenance’ likely included not allowing strangers to jump up and down on gravesites like they were children on beds when their parents weren’t watching, so he had little choice other than to interfere.

He could probably take the man in a fight. His silhouette wasn’t very imposing and if he picked fights with the dead, he surely wasn’t that impressive in a fight against those who could fight back.

“You’re not supposed to do that, you know”, Andrew said, clicking his flashlight back on. The man on the grave stilled, turning his head slowly toward Andrew. He blinked in the harsh light of the beam, pale eyes likely blinded by it for a few seconds before he seemed to gather his bearings.

“He’s a serial killer and mob boss. I wouldn’t bother with him”, the man said, but he seemed to be directing his words more toward the stone at the head of the grave. “People who kill their wives don’t deserve to rest easy.”

Andrew flicked a glance at the gravestone. It read  _ Nathan Wesninski, 1955-2006. _ The man hadn’t died long ago, but Andrew knew there’d been no bouquets left here for him; it was Andrew’s job to clean them away when they began to rot. He remembered reading about the man in the newspaper, and even if this man - this man who jumped on graves like the bodies beneath the earth would feel it - hadn’t told him, Andrew would’ve known that he wasn’t exactly undeserving of the harsh treatment. Still, though… He looked back at the man and his eyes caught on the glow of the light in auburn-red hair. “I still can’t let you stomp on graves.”

Young Wesninski shrugged and kicked lightly at the gravestone. 

“You seem to be taking his crimes very personally.”

Young Wesninski nodded, a smile more pained than happy taking over his face as he stared down at the name carved into the granite. “You know, daddy issues.”

He certainly  _ hadn’t _ known that, and he had to pause for several seconds just to process it. Suddenly the rage made a lot more sense.  _ “Oh.” _

The man - the son of the man whose grave he was desecrating (did this constitute desecration? Or just blatant disrespect?) laughed. “Yeah. Oh.”

He met Andrew’s gaze unwaveringly as Andrew thought. Thought of ‘serial killer’ and ‘people who kill their wives’ and ‘daddy issues’, and then,

He turned around and started walking back the way he came. “I guess I didn’t see anything.”

The man’s sharp laughter rang out behind him, and following it came more  _ thump, thump, thumps. _

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt ("Dancing on those graves, might not be a good idea") from tumblr: https://fyotpprompts.tumblr.com/post/166863898540/some-halloween-prompts


	4. Authentic

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “Is that red syrup? Please tell me that’s syrup.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Bit of a short one today! I've been writing like hell, though, and have almost 10k words of Andreil written just this weekend! I'll be posting Neil whump, Robin-Neil friendship and some scar worship this coming week!

“Is that red syrup? Please tell me that’s syrup.”

Neil looked up at Nicky, who’d just walked into the kitchen, and then down at his shirt. The patch of red on one side, over his right hip, made it look worse than it really was, but Neil doubted Nicky would agree with him. “What’s red syrup?”

Nicky leaned his head back and groaned. “Neil. My sweet angel child. Why do you keep doing this?”

Neil scoffed, affronted. “I didn’t  _ do _ anything, Nicky. I just… tripped.”

“You tripped”, called another voice. Just behind Nicky, Andrew had shown up in the doorway, arms crossed over his chest with an unimpressed look on his face. He was wearing the pajama pants Neil had bought for him as a joke, the black fleece ones with smiling jack-o’-lanterns on them, and Neil still smiled whenever he saw them. (“I have to wear them now, don’t I?” Andrew had said when Neil pointed it out last night. “Or you would’ve wasted your money.”)

“I did, actually”, Neil huffed. “I was on a run and my foot caught on a rock. It’s not a big deal.” He didn’t mention the fact that he’d tripped only because the sight of people running around with white sheets over their heads, holes cut out for the eyes - in massive groups, mind you, like a knock-off ghost army in mid-October - had been alarming.

“I mean”, Nicky said, gesturing loosely at his own forehead, “it’s spooky-looking, at least? You’ll have a suitable scar for Halloween night.”

“The boy’s got enough scars”, Andrew muttered, lips pursed as he walked up to the coffee machine and began to pour his morning shot of Life Elixir (which is the weight Andrew generally attributed to it).

“The…” Neil asked, lifting his hand to press against his forehead. It felt wet. “Oh.”

“You’re useless”, Andrew told him as he walked out of the kitchen with a massive mug in hand.

That’s when Kevin joined them, just as newly awake as Andrew but looking closer to a baby bird - scruffy, grayish, and very confused - with his hair pointing in every direction. He paused when he crossed the doorway, looking at Neil worriedly. “Please tell me that’s red syrup.”

“What the fuck is red syrup?” Neil asked, exasperated.

“I guess I’ll have to show you the Scream movies”, Nicky resolved with a put-upon sigh.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt ("Is that really red syrup? Please tell me it's syrup.") from tumblr: https://bookofmirth.tumblr.com/post/166078689072/creepyhalloween-sentence-starters-prompts


	5. The Power of Christ Compels You!

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "Do you know any spells to get rid of this thing?"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry this is late! Kind of in the midst of a minor crisis right now so I'm playing catch-up; two chapters today and two tomorrow should make up the difference!

“Do you know any spells to get rid of this thing?” Neil asked, gesturing over his shoulder. 

The store he’d walked into was ornately decorated, walls draped in expensive black-and-purple fabrics (and what was it about witches and those colors?), massive crystals and small, fancy ones alike on dark-wooden shelves and floors that creaked beneath his feet. There were symbols on some of the surfaces that Neil guessed were for protection but evidently didn’t work because the creature looming over him was still, well, looming over him, even after he crossed the threshold.

“What thing would that be?” the woman behind the counter asked. She was dressed in a black blouse and wore little makeup, fluffy red hair gathered into a bun at the top of her head. 

“The… demon? I don’t know what he is. He won’t tell me.” Neil was past feeling embarrassed about this. Sure, last week he’d been a skeptic and hadn’t believed in anything supernatural whatsoever, but things change all the time and Neil never was very consistent in his beliefs. Besides, witches and psychics ought to believe him, not laugh at him. Supernatural phenomena were their whole profession, he was pretty sure. Not that any of the previous ones had been useful.

“Let me get some tools to determine his nature”, the woman offered with a polite smile, then began digging through the shelves behind her. 

The creature, who looked very much like a five-foot tall blond man but was decidedly not (the fully black eyes made it clear enough, as did the fact that it seemed only Neil could see him - but he wasn’t hallucinating, because-) crossed the room and pulled a crystal ball off the shelf. It crashed against the floor and split into at least twenty pieces.

The woman screamed in surprise and jumped back from the sound, staring with wide eyes at the wreckage. “He does that”, Neil told her. “It’s kind of why I want him gone.”

A pack of quills was next, followed by a suspicious-looking (orange) succulent. “You need to get out”, the woman told Neil, white as a sheet, “right now.”

Neil sighed and turned around. “Fine.”

The street outside was empty this late at night, far from the more active downtown area, so Neil, as soon as he stepped out of the light coming from the shop’s windows, felt free to berate the monster. “Why the fuck do you keep doing that?”

The monster, who followed him out - because it seemed he’d follow Neil anywhere - shrugged. “Bored.”

Neil dragged a hand down his face, sitting on the curb. “You’re bored. That why you shattered my mirror? Torment my cats?”

“I didn’t torment them. They were having fun.”

“They were tearing up my furniture.”

“They joined in my efforts to torment  _ you. _ They’re allies.”

Neil turned his head to the side to meet the monster’s eyes. “Do you not have anything better to do than follow me around while I try to get rid of you?”

The monster looked down the street for several silent seconds before looking back at Neil. “It’d sound tragic if I said no. Let’s say I’m bored.”

Well, that was sort of sad. “There are better ways to fix that than tormenting random people.”

The monster scrunched his nose. Skepticism. “Prove it.”

Neil let out an incredulous laugh. “‘Prove it’?” When the monster only nodded, he asked, “how am I meant to do that?”

“That”, the monster said, crouching in front of him. They were only inches apart, and Neil could almost see his own reflection in the monster’s eyes, “is your problem to solve.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Prompt by bookofmirth on tumblr!


	6. The American Parasite

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “This can’t be the zombie apocalypse. I’m not caught up on my favorite shows.”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Like I said in the previous notes, I missed some days and am now making up the difference! Uploading this on day 7 though it's number 6, but if all goes well, we'll be back to normal by tomorrow!

“This can’t be the zombie apocalypse. I’m not caught up on my favorite shows.”

Dan spun around, her back to the TV screen, to stare at her. “That cannot be your main concern right now.”

Allison scoffed. Despite the snide, ‘I’m better’-look on her face, she hunched in on herself on the couch. “If I could wrap my mind around the fucking  _ zombie apocalypse,  _ I’m sure I’d be worried about it. As it is, I  _ can’t.” _

They were words Neil could relate to. He was staring at the TV in disbelief, watching as people with gray skin in very ordinary clothes razed down the streets in Sacramento, blood dripping from their mouths and no signs of life in their eyes. “I can’t believe I survived my father and the Moriyamas for this.”

Andrew huffed a laugh. He was sitting next to Neil on the loveseat in the girls’ dorm, where they’d all gathered after waking up in a world much unlike the one they’d fallen asleep in. Two hours had passed since then, but they remained glued to the news for lack of better things to do. (Wymack was out getting his hands on as much survival gear and canned food as possible, but had told them to stay inside. The chaos in stores just then was immeasurable.) “Exactly your luck.”

Dan shook her head, arms crossed in a defensive posture. She’d been pacing for several hours, and had made a deep trail in the carpet over the course of the morning.

“I can’t believe this is happening”, Nicky said, not for the first time. “Why did it have to start in  _ our _ country?”

“I get it”, Aaron contributed. “If I were a deadly parasite or whatever, I’d want to start by killing us, too.”

“Us specifically?” Matt questioned.

“No.”

“Do you think they’ll call it the ‘American parasite’?” Nicky asked, with a wry twist to his mouth.

Andrew shook his head. “They’ll call it the ‘actually, it’s a hoax, and if it isn’t a hoax then it isn’t that bad, and if it  _ is _ that bad we couldn’t have done anything about it, but if we could have, the Democrats control congress, so that’s the problem’.”

“- parasite”, Nicky finished.

“Concise”, Allison said. She was chewing on a fingernail and nodding along as if any of what they were saying made sense. 

“We should probably get somewhere without a lot of people”, Neil said. “Somewhere with natural water sources where you can see people coming.”

Kevin pointed at him with an unstable arm. He’d been day-drinking since he woke up and was informed that the apocalypse was upon them. “That’s my Neil, with the survival tips.”

“How about”, Allison said, “how about that cabin? The ‘Neil almost got murdered and we all kinda thought he did and then he came back with a lot of scars and we were all really upset’ cabin?”

“Concise”, Neil echoed. “But yes. Good plan.”

“I’ll call Sarah!” Allison said, getting off the couch. The ability to be useful seemed to have rejuvenated her. “Wait, she’s in California, do you think she’s dead?”

“No”, Dan said softly, “but I’m sure she’s a little busy.”

“Fuck. Does anyone here know how to book a trip?”

“Why the fuck would they be taking bookings right now?” Andrew asked. “We go there and we break in.”

“Guys”, Neil said. He’d spotted something on the TV. “It’s starting to spread in Raleigh.”

“WE GO THERE AND WE BREAK IN! EVERYONE GET IN THE CAR WE HAVE TO GET WYMACK”, Dan screamed, running toward the door.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This turned into pure crack. If you don't follow American politics, I'm sorry (but also, I'm happy for you, your mental health is probably better than mine)
> 
> Prompt by bookofmirth on tumblr!

**Author's Note:**

> Let me know what you think in the comments! And happy Halloween month!


End file.
